NBAA Vol. 2 Chapter 3 Part 3

“…hey, what’s going on here? There weren’t any moats last week, right?”

“You idiot, did you even read the reports? Some weird adventurer got the villagers to dig one. But he’s just a useless Support Magician, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Haha! Right, right, now I remember…those poor fools must have gone mental to rely on a shitty job like that…”

“Definitely…”

It was late night when the two Monster Tamers arrived at a hill overlooking Aferre, about one kilometer from the village. The Goblin troops were standing by too.

Most of the Goblins had physiques similar to adult humans: there also were three Goblin Knights among the troops. The Goblins were standing in a circle around the two Tamers, as to protect them.

“So, what do you plan to do? The walls are easy enough to climb over, but the moats seem deeper than expected.”

“No problem, we just need to use the escape route written in the report. No way twenty soldiers can guard a village as big as that. If we can get close without them spotting us and get in through that hidden route, we’ve as good as won.”

“Leave that to me, then. You watch out so those huge things don’t go out of control.”

“Got it. But be careful…don’t let your guard down.”

“Loud and clear…let’s get moving!!”

The man raised his voice and the Goblins around him reacted: twenty of them followed him towards the village.

On the hill remained ten Goblins, three Goblin Knights, and the old Monster Tamer they encircled.

The man whispered to himself while reading a letter.

“Anyway…I never heard anything of the village improving their defenses to this point. That elder better not be thinking of tricking us…no, that can’t be.”

The man doubted the elder for a moment, but quickly changed his mind.

He was the one who decided to kill people closely related to the elder when the latter sought assistance outside the village, to serve as a warning.

The man actually possessed a very special Job other than Monster Tamer,

“If anything happens, I can just flee by myself…only another Assassin can hope to find me if I’m hiding, after all.”

The man had absolute trust in his other Job.

When he was born, he already possessed unique Assassin skills, the job most proficient in stealth activities: thanks to these abilities, he had escaped deadly situations several times already.

The man, however, had yet to learn…

…that in the village there was a boy, raised by an Assassin for ten years, who had abilities on par with genuine holders of that Job…

~

The other Monster Tamer, named Shuu, approached the fortified village with Goblins in tow.

As he predicted, the village seemed heavily guarded on the surface, but lacked manpower. There was not even one soldier standing guard on the walls.

He carefully observed the moats for any traps, then proceeded cautiously.

“Here it is…man, those idiots better not hope they did a good job hiding it…”

“Ghee…”

The secret entrance was hidden by a wooden plank, as stated in the report.

Shuu grinned, then ordered the Goblins to enter.

“Tch, it’s too small to carry any large weapons inside…whatever, have the small ones go in first.”

“Ghee!”

“Gheeh.”

Following Shuu’s orders, the Goblins armed with battle axes or spears put down their weapons and entered the one meter wide hole.

Goblins could fight on par with average Humans even if unarmed.

Shuu was confident that they could easily overrun the village even without their weapons, so he only sent the smaller Goblins in first.

“The rest of you start climbing the walls…hm? What’s this? Earth?”

Shuu failed to realize it at first, because of the darkness, but a closer look at the walls revealed that the surface was covered in hardened soil.

The surface was thus too slippery to climb on, so Shuu gave up on that plan and decided to leave it all to the Goblins who fit through the hole. He faced the secret opening again, when something unexpected happened in it.

“Hm? What the…whoa!?”

“Gheeeeh…..!?”

Black smoke emerged from the hole. Shuu peered inside, to see what was going on.

Together with the screams of Goblins, the pungent smell of burning flesh attacked his senses.

Shuu quickly realized that the villagers had likely poured oil or something similar in the hole and set it on fire. The small Goblins who entered the hole were thus burned alive.

“Damn, it was a trap!!”

“Too late!!”

“What!?”

Shuu turned towards the voice’s direction — on top of the village walls.

Before he realized it, twenty villagers were standing on the wall, all armed with bows made by Reito.

The villagers shot all their arrows at the same time.

“Waaaahhh!?!”

“Gheeh!!”

“Gyeeh!?!”

Their target was not the Goblin troops, but Shuu, their controller.

The Goblins shielded their master with their bodies. Taking advantage of the confusion, however, another group of villagers climbed down into the moat with a ladder.

“Kill them all!! Don’t leave even one alive!!”

“You’ll pay for attacking our village!!”

“Don’t let them escape!!”

“W-what the hell!?”

Shuu was too shocked and bewildered by the unexpected developments to move: the villagers who climbed down in the moat, spears in hand, charged the Goblins.

“Die, you bastards!!”

“Gwheh!?”

Normal iron spears could not pierce the Goblins’ armor: the villagers’ weapons, however, had been reinforced by Reito with Metal Transmutation, thus rendering them capable of penetrating the Goblins’ helmets and armor.

Seeing the Goblins fall one after the other, Shuu panicked and tried to flee, but it was too late: he was already surrounded.

He then yelled to the Goblins.

“S-shit!! Get me out of here!!”

“Gheee…!?”

“You aren’t going anywhere!! We’re not scared of you!!”

“Target this man!! The monsters won’t move if we get him!!”

Monsters bound via Covenant Magic obeyed their master’s every order: if the latter was in danger, however, their absolute priority was to defend them.

The villagers on the walls set arrows in their bows and let them fly towards the Tamer: the Goblins thus surrounded their master, in order to protect him.

To do so the Goblins themselves became defenseless, so the villagers armed with spears could attack them without fear of retaliation. Other villagers also threw stones at the invaders from a distance.

“Get out of our village!!”

“We’re going to protect our home!!”

“Die, you bastards!!”

“D-damned peasants…!!”

“Ghyeeehhhh!?!”

The Goblins protecting Shuu eventually fell to the repeated attacks.

The villagers’ attack power was far lower than any adventurer or royal soldier: with enough numbers and preparations, however, they could prove a match for the monsters.

Shuu did not have any particular fighting abilities other than his Monster Tamer skills, so he could only curl into a ball before the villagers’ offensive.

“Eeeekkk!! P-please, spare me!!”

“Ghyah…”

“GWAAAHHH!?”

The instant Shuu’s pitiful shout echoed in the surroundings, the last Goblin shielding him collapsed, falling on its master’s body.

Looking at Shuu, squirming under the Goblin’s weight, the villagers cheered loudly.

They had successfully defended their village, without a single casualty.

~


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